Speckled forest-pitviper, La Isla Escondida, Colombia

Finally, after a 7km hike through the jungle which took us forever, we arrived at the lodge of La Isla Escondida. There, we found this viper waiting for us. It was pre-captured and held for us to see. We didn't ask anyone to do this and we have mixed feelings about it, but it seemed healthy and we figured to not let it be for nothing and make use of the opportunity to document it. It was released soon after.

This area of Colombia is known as a viper hotspot. It means there's a lot of diversity and possibly also in relatively big numbers. However, you still won't see many. To illustrate, an expedition once landed into this area and did a 5 day survey, they found zero vipers.

So our La Isla Escondida tag...

1103La Isla Escondida

...already has some substance to it (count at the time of this writing is 108 photos), but know that this was just the path in. What follows is 4 full days and nights of additional observations :)